Quote ="Saddened!" As everyone on here is against this, what would your suggestion be to stop it happening? Do we just let people who choose life on benefits do that indefinitely? Really? The Government here is clearly trying to target those who choose not to work, rather than those who are just cannot find work. [uFor all the claims on here that those people don't exist, they clearly do and in great numbers.[/u'" You didn't read my link then from The Rowntree Foundation? Just for you I'll post it again: [iThe Joseph Rowntree Foundation published a study in December testing whether there were three generations of the same family that had never worked. Despite dogged searching, researchers were unable to find such families. If they exist, they account for a minuscule fraction of workless people. Under 1% of workless households might have two generations who have never worked – about 15,000 households in the UK. Families with three such generations will therefore be even fewer. [/i www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... acts-myths

Quote ="Saddened!" As everyone on here is against this, what would your suggestion be to stop it happening? Do we just let people who choose life on benefits do that indefinitely? Really? The Government here is clearly trying to target those who choose not to work, rather than those who are just cannot find work. [uFor all the claims on here that those people don't exist, they clearly do and in great numbers.[/u'" You didn't read my link then from The Rowntree Foundation? Just for you I'll post it again: [iThe Joseph Rowntree Foundation published a study in December testing whether there were three generations of the same family that had never worked. Despite dogged searching, researchers were unable to find such families. If they exist, they account for a minuscule fraction of workless people. Under 1% of workless households might have two generations who have never worked – about 15,000 households in the UK. Families with three such generations will therefore be even fewer. [/i www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... acts-myths

I'd hazard a guess that the percentage of unemployed with zero intention of finding work is less than single digits. Unfortunately, the way Jobcentres are now structured, there are no employees with sufficient expertise or time to spot the few feckless individuals that create all the headlines. But at least the £71 a week JSA is some form of guarantee, what happens when they are found a "job" that offers a zero-hours contract and they could conceivably be earning less that JSA? I suppose the government could continue reducing JSA until work really did pay.

I'm still at a loss as to why our resident reight-wingers can froth and foam on this thread, yet have spectacularly failed to engage in discussion on Minball's thread on [url=http://viewtopic.php?f=11&t=558949&tsmp=1380564592Deregulation, casualisation and low pay[/url. Are they waiting for IDS and Cameroon to speak before coming up with any ideas?

They obviously never visited Hull then

Quote ="Hull White Star"You didn't read my link then from The Rowntree Foundation? Just for you I'll post it again: [iThe Joseph Rowntree Foundation published a study in December testing whether there were three generations of the same family that had never worked. Despite dogged searching, researchers were unable to find such families. If they exist, they account for a minuscule fraction of workless people. Under 1% of workless households might have two generations who have never worked – about 15,000 households in the UK. Families with three such generations will therefore be even fewer. [/i www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... acts-myths'" That just talks about generations. 15,000 households where two generations have never worked - disgusting.

Quote ="Hull White Star"You didn't read my link then from The Rowntree Foundation? Just for you I'll post it again: [iThe Joseph Rowntree Foundation published a study in December testing whether there were three generations of the same family that had never worked. Despite dogged searching, researchers were unable to find such families. If they exist, they account for a minuscule fraction of workless people. Under 1% of workless households might have two generations who have never worked – about 15,000 households in the UK. Families with three such generations will therefore be even fewer. [/i www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... acts-myths'" That just talks about generations. 15,000 households where two generations have never worked - disgusting.

Care to share how this conversation came about? It just seems a little bit convenient that workshy scroungers randomly brag about it to you.



Really, never worked a day in their lives? After school when everyone else was going through apprenticeships and youth employment schemes, they just went to the government money tree where they've been allowed to pick from ever since?

Didn't they jet off to Turkey as well a few weeks ago?

Isn't there some details you're conveniently ignoring? Like an inheritance for example. Or maybe the fact that he they do pick up odd work here and there? Or maybe the fact that the caravan in Wales is something that the Dingles off Emmerdale wouldn't let their dog stay in.

The figures can only be correct if the agency is able to collect data on every available job - we both know that will not be the case - so that blows your first point out of the water.

I have stated in this thread that if you work no matter what the circumstance you should get at least the minimum wage. As for research if you look long and hard enough - and nobody will do either more than you when trying to support your point - you will find a research piece that agrees with that point. That is very different from being the generally accepted position.

OK I'll bite and say out of a country of 70 million do you realise what percentage of the population that is? Seeing as you're another one who probably didn't read the Rowntree Foundations findings:-

[iHard to judge, and hard to generalise. There is a lot of movement in and out of work, so many Job Seekers Allowance claims are very short. More than 80% of claimants never go near the work programme because they aren't on the benefit for long enough. A lot are off it in under six months. For disability benefits, there are a lot more long-term claimants, of course. In 2012, 18% of working-age households were workless; in only 2% had no one ever worked. More than half of adults in households where no one has ever worked were under 25. So although the proportion of households where no one has ever worked has increased recently, it is likely to be a manifestation of high and rising young adult unemployment.
[/i

Of course it wouldn't occur to you that some of the households may have disabled parents and children?

I think you'll find that most aren't against the principle of encouraging the fit and able to seek and find appropriate work.

I also believe, in the absence of any data provided by HM Government, that the situation is not as described.

We already know that HM Government has been reprimanded for claiming that "some" families have been claiming a pure benefit lifestyle for three generations, an agency with access to the official figures tried to find the truth of that claim and could not find one single example, unfortunately HM Government and specifically HM Prime Minster (who had made the claim) did not respond to that challenge so we must assume that he was lying for dramatic effect.

HM Government have already published, and their compliant media are reporting on, a figure of 200,000 claimants who will be affected, these being people who have claimed out of work benefits for three years or more and so we must believe this figure although the ACTUAL figure would be nice to see rather than a rounded-up version.

If we take the official number of JSA claimants for Sept 2013 it was 1.402 million, and as most out of work benefits for those fit to work are based on JSA then we'll take this as the base point and calculate that the target audience for these sanctions is 14% - its a not insignificant figure, one in seven of people wandering through job centres have been unemployed for three years or mroe.

Which only leaves one question in my mind.

What the fook do job centre staff do for their salaries ?

Ok you tell me the exact number of people who are two generation shirker and I'll tell you it is wrong.

Just because its a small number (as you say) doesn't make it right!

On the other hand this [urlhttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/09/30/david-cameron-living-wage_n_4016728.html?utm_hp_ref=uk[/url would probably win the next election for them if they could introduce it within the next twelve months.

Its not the actual numbers that is the point, its the prominence that those small numbers are given in the Ministers rhetoric that is the issue, why did HM Prime Minister mention three generation dole families at all when he was simply inventing the "fact" - its because he wanted to plant a seed in "Hardworking Families" minds that anyone claiming any benefit was thieving money straight out of their wallets - it probably wasn't his idea for they employ very devious policy makers and speech writers to sway public opinion, all politicians have a go at this when in power so its not totally Camerons fault but he has been shown to be exagerating and he hasn't talked about it since, not even to apologise for misleading.

The demonising of claimants of any type has been one of the most disgraceful elements of this parliament.

Tell me where I said it was right? I was proving to Saddened that he is wrong when in his assumption that there is "an awful lot of people who see unemployment benefits as a birthright".

Another quote from the findings:-

[iImportantly, families experiencing long-term worklessness remained committed to the value of work and preferred to be in jobs rather than on benefits. There was no evidence of "a culture of worklessness" – values, attitudes and behaviours discouraging employment and encouraging welfare dependence – in the families being passed down the generations. [/i

Some interesting stats [url=http://www.nomisweb.co.uk/reports/lmp/gor/2092957698/report.aspxHERE[/url

It's easy to see how the likes of Gidiot, IDS and Cameroon can play the stat-twisting game to tell their own story but the most interesting stat for mine is that 3.8 people are available on JSA for each job, how dothe divvy that one up?

The site I work at has regular vacancies - minimum one a month sometimes more - we only ever approach the appropriate agency to find the correct person, how do these jobs get on to your list of available positions?

It's not MY list imbecile

There are nearly 2.5m people unemployed and 536,000 vacancies.
Some Eastern Europeans coming to work for a few months before going back home is a totally different situation to someone trying to live here permanently and bringing up a family.
As mentioned, what are all these people going to do? And how much will it cost?
Job Centre staff are busy enough as it is (an average time with client of 7 minutes). How many more job centre staff need to be hired to either see these people every day or supervise their work?
Will the state refund the extra costs associated with working 30 hours per week?
How many people will be made redundant to allow these jobs to be done and is that legal?

George Osborne had the nerve to moan about "policies drawn up on the back of a fag packet" and then produces this.

They don't have to employ extra people to process the daily checks, barely any of the 200,000 targeted will be asked to attend every day but will instead be shipped off to "training" courses (like the ones that Damo used to describe) run by HM Governments choice of provider at a cost to HM Government.

Quite how that will improve the jobless figures or cut the benefits bill is a mystery but someone somewhere will profit from it of that there is no doubt.

A very simple solution would be to remove the waiting time restriction on re-applying for benefits if the unemployed person is willing to take up a succession of short term vacancies offered by any of the partner work agencies that the job centres now carry advertising for as the fact that taking up temporary work will cause you all sorts of hassle when it ends is the only thing that prevents many from going down that route - a simple rolling unemployment benefits agreement linked to one of their agency partners would suffice - they pay for the days that the person is employed, the universal benefit is paid pro-rata at the end of the month.

Grow up you silly little man - just answer the question if you can - doubtful but there you go.

The point is you are quoting figures as gospel that most reasonably intelligent people know to flawed, I offered you a very simple example of how the figures could be flawed - as usual you were shown to be incapable of rational debate. Resorting to insults as the flaws in your argument were exposed.

You find criticising government data easy when it suits your point but you take affront when the tables are turned - you are a very sad individual.

While I don't buy into the current Tory thinking that all the unemployed are work shy scroungers, I do as part of my job (which involves visiting some of our most deprived areas) often see where a good kick up the arris might be appropriate. Only yesterday I turned up on Leicester Road in Dinnington, South Yorkshire at 8am for a site visit to see about half a dozen people (men & women) sat outside drinking cans of lager, this was the same house where they were doing exactly the same thing on my previous visit. The site manager has had nothing but problems, usually threats and abuse from the locals to his workforce from several properties on the street, along with multiple thefts from the site running into thousands of pounds. I have also, never seen so many mobility scooters in my life ( a lot being driven by relatively young people), I thought it was a convention.

Perhaps these sort of areas need more attention than forcing the people who have worked most their lives (only to find themselves victims of Tory policies) to work cleaning graffiti off walls for under £2 per hour.

All the figures are from the ONS, they have not been manipulated in any way. Only someone of limited intellect could assume otherwise

There will also be vacancies in the stats that are no longer open, skewing the stats in the other direction.
There will be people who are seeking work who are not registered as unemployed.

But, based on those (possibly flawed) figures, there are [ufive times as many[/u registered unemployed as there are reported vacancies.
Are you suggesting that the flawed stats are incorrect by 500% ?

If not, then there [uare[/u more unemployed people than jobs available ... which is the point.

Hence, we cannot say that all unemployed are feckless and workshy.
Hence, punishing all unemployed by reducing their benefit is only an unfair and crude cut in cost rather than the much-trumpeted targetting of the lazy buggers.

Gideon gets better and better.
Yesterday he was bragging that they'll run a surplus by the end of the next parliament.

Anyone remember what he said before the last election?
Yes, that's right, that he'd eliminate the deficit by 2015, a prediction that has been put back each year, by a year ... earlier this year they were predicting 2018.

But now (fanfare of trumpets) they will produce a surplus by, erm, 2020.

Or, to put it another way ... the one parliamentary term of five years required to eliminate the deficit is now going to be TEN YEARS.
Great predictions Gideon old chap.

Also, he warned with a very stern expression that we can't go on mounting up debt ... but, for some reason, he omitted to mention that under his judicious guidance the debt has risen by about half a trillion quid.

At least Alistair Darling bought some banks with his debt, this berk Osborne has nothing to show for it at all.

For a party that is so determinedly against borrowing, they seem to be doing an awful lot of it.

Just as well I have been honing my cooking techniques for all these OAP's I'm shortly gonna be rustling the pots and pans for.
Personally, I've found it more important to spend a couple of years with somebody I cared about who was dying.
Work hasn't been that important since.
Now I should have gone down the carer route but I couldn't really be fooking d.
Just carried on claiming my £70 a week single blokes JSA which is probably a fair bit less than I could have got.

Oh well, I am just going to pay for my sins now.
Best get out in my driveway with a hard brush and get my sweeping technique primed.

So the OFFICIAL figures are wrong, are they?

Care to share the fruits of your own research proving that the OFFICIAL figures are wrong?

The same thoughts crossed my mind when I heard it but that doesn't matter. It [isounds[/i good to the average person and continues the ridiculous analogies used previously such as not maxing out the nations credit card etc.

It's also economically inept. If in future there is another recession that drives the tax take down as unemployment rises ans spending decreases, just what is he going to do when that means the government has to borrow to keep things like the NHS, Police and other services running? Shut them down? The idea he can stash away enough to cope with the crash we just had is nuts. We'd have no roads fit to drive on, no NHS, nothing if he did that. A future government will have to borrow sooner rather than later if there is a major downturn.

There is also absolutely nothing wrong with borrowing if you use it to generate prosperity further down the line. It's only bad if you do as he does which is borrow to fund cuts. Which when you think about it is quite ironic.

He contracts the economy by austerity, has to borrow to keep the country running as a result and now proposes to outlaw borrowing in future. Is he saying he shouldn't be doing [iexactly what he is doing[/i right now?

I'd also like to know how this will affect the funding for HS2. That is going to cost billions so does running a surplus mean we won't have the money for HS2 until the country has enough stashed away in the bank having run a surplus for a few years?

Or will borrowing for that be OK? If it is, then he is actually re-introducing Gordon Browns golden rule of only borrowing to invest. That would be even more ironic.



Exactly.